


Hold Me (Break Me)

by Lulatic



Series: Fears and Insecurities [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Unrequited Love, Keith doesn't understand love, M/M, Unhealthly Relationships, basically they really really need to communicate, implied alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8738644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulatic/pseuds/Lulatic
Summary: Sometimes, when Lance smiled at him in that way, when his eyes lit up and his touch was nothing but bittersweet against his skin, or when they would spend nights doing nothing but just watching old black and white movies in the dark, surrounded by each other's warmth, Keith could almost convince himself. 
He could almost believe that Lance loved him back. 
Or; Lance and Keith's relationship isn't the picture perfect romance that Keith thought love was supposed to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written at midnight, and I have only minimally edited it, so I'm sorry for any errors. 
> 
> This fic is inspired by the song [Bloodstream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPdFQtRILsU)  
> by Transviolet, which is so good it had me staying up all night writing this thing. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Keith had met him in what was probably the worst circumstances in the world: at a shitty college party. 

He couldn’t remember much of that night, all his memories were blurred together; he could remember the sickening tang of alcohol in the air, on his lips, on his tongue. He could still hear the music booming in his ears, feel it reverberating through his bones. He could remember the sway of the crowds, the way it pulled at him like a current.

He could remember a hand on his back, breath dusting his ear. He could remember seeing a smirk, blue eyes staring down at him. He could remember laughing, smiling back up at him. He could still feel the fingers wrapped around his wrist, hear the whisper in his ear, the butterflies in his stomach as he was guided up the stairs. 

Fingers tracing fire along his skin. Lips brushing through his hair, down his temple, his jaw, his neck. His voice, hushed and rough and gritty all at once, whispering secrets against Keith lips. 

Keith didn’t need to wonder what he had done that night when he woke up the next morning, bare of anything but the white sheets of a bed that wasn’t his draped over his body.

The sun’s rays seeping into the room felt like nails hammering into his skull as he sat up, wincing at the dull pain in his hips, the stinging scratches on etched into his skin. 

The other side of the bed had been completely empty when he sat up, looked around and only saw his own clothes from the day before strewn around the room. Keith sucked in a breath, his chest aching as he rubbed the back of his neck, running fingers through his disheveled hair. 

_I’m an idiot,_ Keith thought to himself bitterly, biting his bottom lip through the disappointment of an empty bed. _I’m such a fucking idiot. Why did I–_

His breath caught in his throat, thoughts derailing when he saw the note on the nightstand. 

Lunging out, the jackhammers beating against his skull protested, making him groan, smoothing one hand over his eyes. Holding the paper in one hand, he looked down at it between his fingers, instantly noticing the phone number written in black ink, and the quickly scrawled out message underneath it:

_Hey hey sorry i had to run. Thats shitty of me, i know. But my socio prof would roast my head on a spit if i didn’t show. hmu when ur feeling lonely ;)  
–Lance _

That was how Keith got dragged into a relationship with Lance McClain.

* * *

But, Keith never did call him. 

Maybe it slipped his mind, maybe he got too preoccupied with essays and assignments, maybe he didn’t have time in between juggling his part time job at the bar downtown and his schooling. 

Maybe he just wanted to bury the hatchet, forget about the boy with blue eyes and a touch that set fire to his nerves, and move on with his life. 

Maybe it was the world fucking with him, or just karma that lead to him running down the sidewalk, already more than ten minutes late to his afternoon class. 

He had a backpack hanging off one shoulder, his open hand holding on to the strap like his life depended on it. A binder was in his other hand, clutched to his his chest. He ran between people, jumping out of their way and in between the crowds. He made his way around tall buildings, making a sharp corner past the gymnasium– only to slam straight into someone. 

He gasped out, falling forward. He heard a grunt, a groan as he landed on someone’s chest, his eyes clenched shut as he tried to push himself off.   
Keith’s eyes only snapped open when he realized that he wasn’t holding onto his binder anymore. 

“ _Shit_ ,” He growled out under his breath when he noticed his papers strewn all around him, the wind catching them and dragging them farth and farth away. “Shit shit shit!” He crawled off of the other person, grabbing as many of his handwritten notes as he could. 

“I swear to _fuck_ ,” he whined, shoving the crinkled papers in his hand into his binder, throwing it shut with a clack. “I’m late enough as it is, so thanks for watching where you’re going, asshole.” 

When he heard them laugh, his whole body froze. It pulled memories from the back of his mind, hazy and forgotten after so many months. Keith’s heart was pounding in his chest like a drum. 

“Well, no need to be so _rude_ about it,” Lance hummed out, seemingly oblivious. “I mean, technically you were the one that ran into me, so you… you…” His words trailed off into nothing, blue eyes staring at Keith when he turned to look over his shoulder, staring back. He saw the same surprised uncertainty that he felt staring back at him. 

“Keith…” lance whispered out, like his name was so ancient and archaic, as if it was forbidden to say. 

Keith’s mouth was full of cotton, memories pulled to the forefront of his mind; Lance whispering nothing to him, Lance’s body moving against his, Lance’s skin bruising under his tight grip, Lance groaning out his name.

“Lance,” Keith gulped, his face ablaze. He couldn’t meet Lance’s gaze, afraid that Lance would look into his eyes and see what he was thinking. 

There was a pause, a moment of silence that hung around Keith like fog before Lance broke the silence; “you… You never called,” He said it, stated it like it was no big deal. But Keith could have sworn he saw something like disappointment in his eyes, that he could feel it in the way his eyes bore into Keith’s skin. 

Keith bit into his lip, all the papers getting whisked away by the breeze long forgotten as he dug his nails into the palm of his hands, forcing himself to look at Lance. “I… I lost the note,” He said dryly, wondering if Lance could see his lie just by looking at him, if Lance would confront him about how he had crumpled up the note and thrown it away.

“…oh,” Lance bit into his cheek, looking thoughtful for a moment before his eyebrows shot up, “well, uh, what class do you have now?” 

“Calculus.”

“Well,” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, pulling himself to his knees so he could dig around in his pocket. “Here,” he hummed out. Keith stared down at the phone in his hands, stretched out towards him, like it was going to snap at him. “Lets trade numbers.”

Keith blankly nodded his head, not even thinking as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, opening it and swapping it with Lance’s. Lance hummed happily at this, sticking out his tongue as he added his own number to Keith’s contacts. “Now, text me whenever you’re free and kinda feel like hitting up this stud,” He winked while gesturing to himself. 

Keith rolled his eyes, handing Lance’s phone back to him as he pocketed his with a snort. “Yeah, sure, if that’s what you think you are.” 

“Okay, I’ll let that slide this one time, only because you’re cute,” Lance said it like it was nothing, like the small compliment didn’t make Keith blush and cover his face with one hand, staring down at the ground. Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist, pulling them both to their feet, but holding on extra tightly before before Keith could turn away.

The tug at his arm made Keith frown, meet Lance’s eyes, and freeze when he saw the look on his face, indescribable. “Seriously, Keith,” Lance said firmly. “If you ever want to hang out or whatever, just text me or call me or… something. And it’ll be just like last time.” 

Then Lance was gone, leaving Keith standing there alone, leaving nothing but a lasting imprint. Keith could have sworn he still felt Lance’s grip on his wrist, his voice echoing in his ears, his words permanently traced into the back of his skull.

_Just like last time._

* * *

It became something– _they_ became something. 

Keith could never for the life of him recall if he had called first or if Lance did, all he could remember was meeting at a cafe two blocks down from Lance’s apartment. All he could remember was being pulled to Lance’s place and pinned against the door of his apartment twenty minutes later. 

It became a normal thing, a constant in Keith’s life; wake up at noon, go to his class, slink away to Lance’s apartment, slide under the covers of his bed with him

But it wasn’t just that, either. It wasn’t all hot lips against his skin and gasps of breath, nails digging into his hips and teeth scraping against his neck.   
There were weekend nights where they would go watch a shitty sci-fi film in the rundown movie theatre downtown, throwing popcorn at the empty seats all around them and laughing until soda gushed out of Lance’s nose. There were mornings after where they would both just laze around Keith’s dorm, the radio on in the background as Keith quizzed Lance about the major constellations for his astronomy class. There were evenings of cooking in Lance’s kitchen, wearing his shirt and spinning around to the beat of the music reverberating through his whole apartment complex, Lance’s laugh always ringing louder. There was the occasional meaningless arguments, the long drawn out apologies that ended with a cup of coffee in both of their hands and a silence cast over the city that they could only ever hear at two in the morning. 

It was these moments of normalcy, of something so domestic and foreign to Keith, that sent his mind whirling. It made him question himself, what they were, what Keith wanted from this. 

* * *

There were times that Keith was certain that it was all about the sex to Lance.

During those weeks their lives were too busy, when their schedules didn’t overlap, Lance would only see him once. Where Keith would be pulled into one of the bathrooms on campus and would be abandoned twenty minutes later, with nothing but a rushed apology and a quick ‘call me’ before Lance left him there in a hurry.

It was those times that Keith would walk out, hair rustled and lips bitten red, holding his head up high to keep his hands from shaking as me made the walk of shame back to his dorm, that left something cold and dark in his heart. 

It was times like that that made Keith wonder if this was what love really was. If this one sided dependency was what a relationship was supposed to be. If the romance they showed on TV, splattered across movies and burrowed deep in novels, with the two of them depending on one another and communicating and spending long nights staring into each other’s eyes was all a lie. 

It made him wonder about himself, too; when had he started to expect anything more than this from what was between Keith and Lance? When had he started to consider Lance anything more than a way to release some stress? When had he grown so dependent on Lance, to the point where he couldn’t seem to go more than a day without missing his touch? Why did he think that Lance would want anything more than that, would want a lover?

Was this desire, lust? Was this even love at all?

But, the next time Lance would smile at him that way, would pull a blanket off of his bed and curl up on the couch with Keith, every thought would leave his mind. He’d forget, or maybe he chose to forget about it. Maybe all Keith wanted was to live in oblivious bliss, trapped in Lance’s warmth, in the space where he could convince himself that Lance truly loved him. 

* * *

Keith didn’t know what love was. 

He didn’t have any parents to take care of him, didn’t have the time get to know anyone as he was pulled and yanked from foster home after foster home. He didn’t understand what it was like to be held, to feel another’s warmth. 

His only examples of love was what he saw around him, in the couple kissing on the corner of the street, in the two old ladies walking down the road holding hands, in a parent’s loving gaze towards their child.

He didn’t know what it felt like to be loved himself. 

He didn’t know the difference between want and love, affection and desire. He only knew what he had heard; love was devotion, love was sacrifice, love was dependency, love was painful. 

Maybe that’s why he was so certain he was in love with Lance, with the only boy in the world who had seemed willing to wake up next to him in the morning, who worshiped his body at night and took care of him in the mornings. 

But, in the times that Keith was left alone to his thoughts, away from Lance’s touch, away form the words that could melt the ice in his bones and make him believe every lie he told himself, Keith would wonder. 

He’d stare down at the mug of coffee in his hands, watching the steam rising. The collar of Lance’s hoodie would burn into his skin, the marks on his neck burrowing into his thoughts. 

_Is this what love is?_

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on my tumblr blog [keithkeithfallinspace!](http://keithkeithfallinspace.tumblr.com/)


End file.
